


Peanut Butter

by Sohotthateveryonedied



Category: Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Babies, Canon Relationships, F/M, Fluff, Pregnancy, Romance, Stephanie Brown's daughter - Freeform, TimSteph, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, cuteness, like a gay elf just took all my teeth out like in rudolph, local girl really really really really loves babies what else is new, seriously this is so fluffy my teeth are falling out, which is actually fitting because it's december so ha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21816223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sohotthateveryonedied/pseuds/Sohotthateveryonedied
Summary: “Hey, cuteness,” Steph replies from where she’s sitting up against her bed, surrounded by schoolwork while she eats peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. “I’d have gotten up to greet you properly, but let’s face it. Once I’m down, I’m not getting back up.” She points to her seven-months-along belly.Robin laughs and presses a kiss to the top of her head when he gets close enough. “Right. How’s the baby-cooking going?”
Relationships: Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake
Comments: 8
Kudos: 113





	Peanut Butter

**Author's Note:**

> Come on, we all knew this was coming eventually. With someone as baby-crazy as I am, it was only a matter of time before I did a fic like this. Also this was originally supposed to be posted in celebration of me finishing finals, but I got impatient. In my defense, my last two tests are today so I'm only like 12 hours early.

“Hey, Steph.” Robin climbs in through the window, being careful not to knock over the half-dead bean plant wilting on the sill. Steph has been trying to coax the poor thing back to life for weeks.    
  
As usual, Robin is in his uniform. Not to say that Steph is  _ ever  _ disappointed to see those form-fitting tights, but she’d be lying if she said “Alvin Draper” didn’t hold his own appeal. Robin’s no scruffier than most nights, apart from some bruising and a cut over his eyebrow that’s bled over the left side of his mask, staining the fabric.    
  
“Hey, cuteness,” Steph replies from where she’s sitting up against her bed, surrounded by schoolwork while she eats peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. “I’d have gotten up to greet you properly, but let’s face it. Once I’m down, I’m not getting back up.” She points to her seven-months-along belly.    
  
Robin laughs and presses a kiss to the top of her head when he gets close enough. “Right. How’s the baby-cooking going?” He kneels beside her.    
  
“Did the words ‘baby-cooking’ really come out of your mouth just now?” The words are thick, sticky with peanut butter.    
  
“I thought of it on my way here. Get it? Because you’ve got a bun in your oven?”    
  
Steph snorts and slaps the back of his head. “Bread is  _ baking,  _ you dummy. And to answer your question, the little guy’s been kicking like crazy since the second you climbed in. I swear to god they’re gnawing on my liver in there.”    
  
“Sounds exciting.” He jerks a thumb toward her bedroom door, dropping his voice a decibel. “Is your mom home?”    
  
“Another late shift.” Steph spreads her arms. “The house is our oyster, my prince.”    
  
“Sweet. Now I can kiss you without feeling guilty about it,” he says, ducking in close.    
  
“I’m already pregnant, so I don’t see how it could get much worse.” But she meets him halfway, pressing their lips together and all but sinking into the sensation of his mouth on hers. She breathes in the scent of smoke, sweat, and root beer Lip Smackers. The scent of her Robin.    
  
Her hand comes up to run her fingers through his hair, but he winces when she accidentally brushes against the forehead gash. She pulls away and smiles. “First-aid kit’s in the closet.”    
  
Robin pecks her once more on the cheek before getting up to retrieve the kit. He finds it with minimal fumbling, having come here injured often enough to know the drill by now. He brings it back and sits across from Steph, taking care to avoid the papers and textbooks strewn across the floor.    
  
“So what was it this time?” Stephanie asks, taking the kit from his hands. “You fell down a flight of stairs? Or, let me guess: you walked into a rose bush during your shift at the flower shop.”    
  
“I don’t work at a flower shop.” He hisses as Steph dabs at the wound with a gauze pad. It’s not bad enough to need stitches, but it’ll leave one hell of a scar.    
  
“That’s too bad. I’ll have to cross it off the list of possible secret identities, then. Now c’mere.” She tears open a butterfly bandage and pulls it down over the cut, sealing it closed. Her knuckle just barely touches the edge of his mask.    
  
“Penguin’s been a pain in the ass lately,” Robin says after a moment. Almost sheepishly.    
  
Steph smooths her thumb over the bandage and kisses it, feather-light. “Is it weird that I’m jealous you’re getting beaten up by bad guys every night and I’m not?”    
  
“Nah, I get it.” While she packs up the first-aid supplies, Robin takes the peanut butter jar and talks around a spoonful. “And hey, at least you’ve only got a few months to go, right?”    
  
She sighs. “Ah, yes. And then we can finally spend time together in places that aren’t my bedroom or a lamaze class full of crusty adults secretly judging me behind my back.”    
  
Robin rubs her shoulder. “Come on, I like our dates.  _ Especially _ these ones. I doubt I’d get any studying done otherwise.” He gestures to the schoolwork scattered around them.    
  
“Oh, so I’m just a brain and a number two pencil to you? I knew you were using me for something.”    
  
“And the free peanut butter, of course.”   
  
“Don’t make me kick you out of my house,” she warns, but she’s smiling. True to the legacy of Robin brightening Batman’s shadows, she feels  _ lighter  _ when he’s around. Like his presence alone has the power to soothe the air itself. Then a sudden twinge makes Steph wince, and one hand instinctively flies to her stomach.   
  
At once Robin’s mood shifts. “You okay?” He looks seconds away from bolting off to call the hospital, police,  _ and  _ the coast guard for good measure.    
  
Steph nods, taking a deep breath. “Jeez, Robin, don’t have a heart attack. The baby’s just trying to knock out a couple of ribs.” She grimaces, waiting for it to settle down. The next nudge comes in a somewhat better spot, and she relaxes. “If I didn’t know it was such a cliché, I’d make a joke about them being a future soccer player.”    
  
Robin eyes her stomach thoughtfully, fingers twitching. “Can I…?” He makes a motion toward her swollen belly.   
  
“Really?” This whole pregnancy, it’s been less “shiny happy family” and more “Stephanie and Robin, plus a peanut-sized third wheel.” Like Steph exists in two spheres: one with Robin and one with the rest of her life—tiny fetus included. The most interaction between Robin and the baby  _ directly _ has been fleeting touches during lamaze exercises and the one sonogram appointment Alvin accompanied Steph to when her mom couldn’t make it.    
  
They both know he’s not the father, and that’s never been a problem. But Robin’s never gone out of his way to  _ interact  _ with the kid. He loves Steph, and the baby inside her happens to be part of the package for nine months. The thought of Robin feeling the baby— _ Steph’s  _ baby—move and shift under his fingertips is as exhilarating as it is bizarre.  _ Worlds colliding at mach speed _ bizarre.    
  
But Robin nods, so Steph leans back on her hands, presenting her midsection. “All right. Go for it, Boy Wonder.”    
  
Slowly—slower than Steph’s patience can take—Robin lays his hand tentatively over her stomach as if he’s touching glass. Or maybe like he’s expecting the baby to lunge out and stab him, Joker-style. Steph takes his wrist and drags it a few inches higher, just a little to the left of her belly button.    
  
Neither of them breathes. Robin’s pulse is fluttering under Steph’s fingers as they wait for the baby to move again. Until, after a minute, it does. And Robin gets this...this  _ look  _ on his face. Sort of like the way Steph looks at ice cream. Or the way Batman would look if he ever came across a sale on leather. Like the world has been reduced to mist under his shoes.    
  
“Wow,” he says, awed. “That’s...wow.”    
  
Steph reclines back against the bed, a smile touching the corners of her lips. “It does it more when you’re around.” Robin’s face at that is priceless. She wishes she had a camera. “Relax, don’t go and get a swelled head over it. It does the same thing when I walk past a hotdog cart.”    
  
She can’t see the glimmer in Robin’s eyes through the domino, but she knows it’s there. He presses his palm more confidently against her belly, feeling the tiny feet patter through her oversized Flash t-shirt.    
  
His mouth twitches in a grin, cheeks flushed and expression filled with so much fascination it makes Stephanie feel like an amoeba on a microscope slide—but  _ leagues  _ more intimate. For once she has Robin’s undivided attention, and her jaw aches with the size of her smile as she watches. Watches him feel her baby’s kicks like it’s the most amazing thing in the universe.    
  
“What’s your favorite color?” she asks, breaking the comfortable silence.    
  
Robin’s eyebrows crease, concentration still set on the little flutters and nudges. “Red. Why?”    
  
She shrugs. “Because I don’t get to know the important details about you. Your middle name, where you grew up, what your parents are like. I want to take whatever info I can get.”    
  
Robin’s hand leaves her stomach, and the ghost of his hand print is cold. “That’s...fair. I guess letting you know  _ some  _ stuff can’t hurt. I’d ask what your favorite color is too, but I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.”    
  
Steph winks. “World’s greatest detective.” She takes the spoon back and licks up a dollop of peanut butter thoughtfully. “Favorite food?”    
  
“Cheeseburgers with enough ketchup to drown a small elephant. What’s yours?”    
  
“Mashed potatoes.” She sucks a runaway smear of peanut butter off her finger. “Though if you asked me this morning, I’d probably have said sardines.”    
  
Robin makes a face. “Sardines?”   
  
“With chocolate syrup. Gross, right? I don’t even  _ like  _ sardines. This baby is messing with my brain cells.”    
  
Robin laughs.   
  
“I’m serious! It’s a thing babies do, I read all about it in one of those pregnancy books. That’s why mommy brain is a thing. Pregnant people become stupid because their kid’s hogging all the good brain cells.”    
  
Robin chuckles again and takes her hand, kissing her knuckles. “Well I think you’re a  _ genius,  _ stolen brain cells and all.”    
  
Steph cups his cheeks with her other hand. “Aw, look at you making up cute crap to appease the pregnant girl.”    
  
“It’s working, isn’t it?” He kisses her—for real, this time—and it tastes like peanut butter. “What was the name of your first pet?” he asks when they part.   
  
“Mary Anne. She was a billion-year-old brown tabby and died when I was five. But I thought _ I _ was supposed to be the one asking questions here.”   
  
“That was never in the set guidelines for this game, as I recall.”    
  
“Cheater.”   
  
“Can’t be cheating if there’s no rules.”    
  
He boops the tip of her nose, making her snicker. “Fine, you win. Would you rather be a mailman or a crossing guard if you had to choose one of them?”    
  
“Mailman, because then at least I’d get to drive around in a truck all day. If Beyoncé showed up here right now, what’s the first thing you’d say to her?”    
  
They spend the rest of the night like that, lying on the carpet and tossing questions into the quiet room until well past three AM, when the night is still and the only sound to be heard other than their voices is the chirping of crickets.    
  
Their hands are linked on the carpet as they stubbornly blink back grogginess, an empty peanut butter jar sitting between them.    
  
Robin’s eyes droop, and Steph pokes his cheek. “Hey. Don’t fall asleep. My mom’ll...” She trails off with a yawn. “Mom’ll kill you if she finds you here in the morning.”    
  
He mimics her yawn, stray locks of hair falling messily in front of his face. “Don’t worry, I’ll...I’ll sneak out in a minute. Promise.”    
  
Steph’s eyes flutter shut against her will, and she knows that when she opens them, it’ll be morning and Robin will have vanished, chased out by the sunlight. Just as she knows that he’ll return, as much a slave to his bone-deep need to be around Steph as she is for him.    
  
So she doesn’t resist when warm arms lift her up and gently deposit her in bed, a phantom of a kiss brushing her cheek. She lets herself slip into slumber, and silently, her Robin leaves. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you leave a comment, I'll follow you home tonight and live under your porch. 
> 
> [Feel free to mosey on down to my Tumblr!](http://sohotthateveryonedied.tumblr.com/)


End file.
